By Kathy Bryan
It’s the summer holidays, and 2020 continues to keep us on our toes. Increasingly, I am finding that the gift of a good book is something I value even more, and I would say I have always loved reading and books. However, settling into a book is not always coming as easily. I have a stack of books on my bedside table, a number of which I have attempted to start but failed to get in to. Don’t worry, they will not be thrown away, I know one day their time will come, and I will be glad of them again. At time of going to press, we have not yet met to discuss this month’s book, A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende, so my write up for this will wait till September. It has been a number of years since I last read a book by Isabel Allende, and without wanting to preempt the book club, for me, it was a joy to rediscover her.
Since March, we have read a number of very different books and I, for one, have enjoyed them all in very different ways— Long may this continue! I would love to hear from you with your thoughts or suggestions for future book clubs. As I said last month, we are planning to have an open book club meeting and discuss a book that addresses a specific topic once a quarter. The next open meeting will be in October. If you have an idea for a topic, or indeed a specific book to suggest, please contact me at kathybryan@ubermoms.de .
Book club going forward
August’s book poll is underway and will be announced soon. This month thanks goes to one of the book club members for suggesting we turn to the Booker Prize for inspiration for our poll. We wait to see if we go bonkers for Booker or not.
A little background on the Booker Prize https://thebookerprizes.com/fiction/2020
It was started 51 years ago, and for the first 45 years only books written in English and written by authors born in the British Isles or the Commonwealth were eligible. However, in 2014 the field was opened to all authors writing in English. It has had some notable winners, Salmon Rushdie, Hilary Mantel, Kauzo Ishiguro. A.S. Byatt, Penelope Lively, and last year saw joint winners, Margaret Atwood and Bernadine Evaristo. Since its beginning, a number of additional prizes have been created including the International Booker prize which will be awarded in August. I wonder if we might return to it for inspiration in the future, as some of the winners might now be considered modern classics. This year’s long list was announced at the end of July and it will be brought down to a shortlist in September.
Kathy Bryan
Kathy Bryan is a stay at home mum with 15 years experience of raising three independent, loving, fun-filled, maddening children. Prior to moving to a village south of Munich, she lived with her family in the middle of England. Being a firm believer that being a stay at home mum does not mean you have to forget who you are, she was always busy in the village, both as a Governor at the school and helping organise village fetes amongst other things. Since arriving in Germany and getting settled here Kathy joined Über Moms and is an active member of the Runners Group and recently started Über Moms very own book club. When not chasing children to do homework or running the highways and byways around her village Kathy can be found sewing patchwork and working out ways to hide “another quilt” in the house.